Western diplomats warn that the al-Saud clan, which has ruled the kingdom for the past century, is the only Western-leaning institution left in a fundamentalist state that is growing younger, poorer and more radical. "Let's say we decided to split sheets with the Saudis. What would replace them would not be a pretty sight," says a U.S. diplomat. "You could see another Taliban. There's no moderate group that could come in and take over."
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But social frustration is mounting because of pressure from the country's exploding young population. More than 60% of the Saudis are under 25, and the birth rate\ufffd37 births for every 1,000 people\ufffdis among the highest in the world. Because of falling oil revenues and the country's spiraling debt, per capita income has plummeted from $28,600 to $6,800 in the past 20 years.
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Askar Enazy, a professor of international law in Riyadh and an outspoken critic of the regime, complains that the clerics "are allowed to run rampant. The al-Saud believe if they oppose them, it will undermine their own legitimacy as rulers. They had the opportunity to crush them many times before but chose not to." Mohammed al Odad is a government minister in Abha, but he is dismayed. "The fundamentalists have total control of the masses," he says. "It gets worse and worse." Parents say they are fed up with the Wahhabist school curriculum, which rears students on a diet of intolerance. A typical passage from a sixth-grade history textbook vows that "Arabs and Muslims will succeed, God willing, in beating the Jews and their allies." Even a member of the royal family concedes, "We can't say we didn't know what was going on. People who stood up against it were told to shut up. The government let it get out of hand."
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The festering public anger toward the U.S. gives the Saudis little incentive to cooperate. Only 16% of Saudis have a favorable view of America, according to a Gallup poll taken this spring.
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Members of the ruling family fret that outrage against the U.S. could rebound against them.